French soldiers serving in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in northern Kosovo, Nov. 29

As the rhetoric about basic treaties signed at the end of the Cold War (START 1, INF, CFE) intensifies, it is becoming clear that collective security in Europe and the world needs new approaches and perhaps a complete overhaul.
The present conflict is based on the mistaken view of Russia adopted by the West in the early 1990s.
Russia as it emerged in late 1991 was in effect a political and ideological negation of the Soviet Union. Only certain political, economic and military circumstances forced it to act as a successor to the U.S.S.R. (mostly at the West’s request).
The Russian people themselves dumped the Communist regime. They made their free choice. Unlike the German people, who had to repudiate the Nazi regime only as a result of their military defeat and foreign occupation.
However, the West began regarding Russia as an ideological and political heir to the U.S.S.R. and as the country that lost the Cold War, must surrender and be dictated new conditions.
It totally ignored Russia’s internal and external political interests, and the fact that they could be out of tune with Western ones. NATO began expanding to the East without any real political or military reasons.
The interests of Brussels bureaucrats, who are still at a loss to find arguments for their existence now that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are gone, have prevailed over the political and military interests of Western countries.
Today, it is practically impossible to hide the fact that NATO’s expansion has only weakened the bloc, politically and especially militarily, and the process seems to have become self-perpetuating.
As a result, Russia-NATO relations soured considerably in the second half of the 1990s, and during NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia nearly hit rock bottom. Later on, the relations improved a little only to worsen again.
Another negative factor was the aggressive foreign policy adopted by America under President George W. Bush. The United States began acting like a bull in a china shop, not caring for Russia or even its Western allies. It started breaking treaties for tactical gains, giving no thought to the long-term strategic results of such behavior. Such was the case with the ABM Treaty and such could be the case with
START-1.
Russia is puzzled by NATO’s enlargement and the deployment of a missile defense shield in Europe.
The explanations emerging from Brussels and Washington are either muddled or demagogic, purposely ignoring Russia’s concerns and interests. They also ignore the postulate that “the military react to opportunities, not intentions,“ making Western peace assurances look weak.
The West’s behavior allows them to revert to the customary Soviet rhetoric about the “imperialist threat.“ This strengthens the position of the more hawkish factions in Moscow, and rallies the population in face of the “external threat“.
In turn, the West sees Moscow’s harsh new rhetoric as an expression of its “traditional aggressiveness“.
There is also something paradoxical about the current treaties. Having been signed in the era of the nearly finished, but still continuing Cold War, they are based on the premise of East-West confrontation. The preservation of these treaties only fuels this confrontation, and their breaking hence breeds new suspicions. There is nothing to replace them, and the mentality of the sides remains the same.
It is clear that the main problem is mentality. The sides must stop thinking in last century cliches. Russia must no longer regard the West as a “global spy ring“ nurturing plots against Russia and seeking its natural resources.
The West must recognize that Russia has interests beyond its borders and stop seeing in it a brute aggressive force bent on subjugating the surrounding countries and nations.
And vice versa. A country opposed to Russia should not be viewed as a “lighthouse of democracy“, deserving to be supported at all costs.
If this shift in attitudes could be accomplished, the need for arms restricting treaties would simply fade away, But mentality is the hardest thing of all to change--especially if the two sides not only lack the will to get rid of their ideological cliches, but, on the contrary, seek to refurbish and renew them.
What is more, the ruling regimes in Russia and some East European and CIS countries make effective use of such cliches to buttress their hold on power.
In such circumstances, the wisest course would be to review all existing treaties in line with the new realities.
Moscow and Washington have already made a very reasonable proposal--to apply the INF treaty, on intermediate range nuclear weapons, to all countries.
As for the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), a new agreement is in order here, one that would set a ceiling on arms and military equipment for NATO, regardless of the number of its signatories.
A good idea would be to lower the quotas for all countries, whether or not they are signatories to the original or adapted version of the CFE.
Considering that none of the CFE signatories (aside from Azerbaijan) reach their quotas, their reduction is unlikely to be a problem.
RIAN.RU

One of the most encouraging aspects of Turkey’s application to the European Union and an argument all too easy to overlook is that most outsiders who take the trouble to know the country end up in favor of Turkish membership.
Familiarity, in other words, does not breed contempt.
Support is not unqualified, but even some of the harshest criticism comes from those who really get the point why Turkey should be in Europe.
The argument is not that the country is in some philosophical or cultural sense incompatible with the EU, but that the sooner Ankara gets its act together the better.
Reform will quicken the pace of membership talks.
Very rarely do people leave Turkey thinking “Nice place to visit but do we really want them in the Council of Ministers?“
By contrast, much of the opposition to Turkish membership comes not from a sense of the dynamics within Turkey itself, but from a perception of the persistent alienation of Turkish communities abroad.
This argument is that if immigrant communities after almost four generations are not integrated into the mainstream of their adopted homelands, how can the Turkish nation possibly hope to conform to European norms.
Of course, the counterargument is that the reason for this lack of integration has much to do with the attitudes and prejudices of the host nation and an institutional failure to engage with people who were regarded, once upon a time, as a convenient source of labor.
The source of Turkish hostility to Europe is grounded in a very similar set of attitudes--what I call the reverse Groucho Club syndrome.
Why try to join a club which doesn’t, at some deep existential level, want you as an equal. One powerful strand of anti-European and anti-Western Islamic movement in Turkey--one which the current ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party studiously rejected--had its roots in the experience of Turkish alienation in Germany.
Necmettin Erbakan, once the current prime minister’s party boss and a man who regarded Europe as the Great Satan’s better half--had himself studied in Aachen.
Commentator after commentator have made the point that Turkey’s long-term strategy for European integration has to be one of reform--and the sooner it can rid itself of the shackles of anti-democratic legislation, like the infamous Article 301, the happier its friends in Brussels will be.
However, there is another long-term goal which needs to be pursued. It has to convince European public opinion that Turkey is a complementary part of Europe, that Turks do not threaten the identity of Europeans any more than Germans threatened the identity of post-war France.
Formal negotiations with Europe will last a long time, but an increasingly important strategy which Turkey must pursue during this period is to carry out another set of discussions with the people of Europe.
This is less a negotiation than a dialogue.
If you want to convince people that you share the same values, you have to talk to them.
I write this column from Brussels, having attended a party along with the mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topba, in an impressive suite of lecture rooms and exhibition spaces that will be known as the Istanbul Centre in Brussels (ICiB).
The point of the ICiB is to demonstrate not just that Istanbul is part of Europe, but that it can join the conversation on equal terms in the very heart of the administrative capital of Europe.
It is a civic initiative and a gentle primer for the rest of Europe to get to know Turkey through the invitation of its largest and (in the opinion of this long-term resident) most attractive city.
It is a place where Istanbul and its European counterparts can discuss genuine concerns, regardless of the issues vexing the negotiating teams in the commission buildings down the road.
Andrew Finkel
TODAYSZAMAN.COM

Pope Benedict XVI poses with Britain's former prime minister, Tony Blair, (r) during their private audience at the Vatican, June 23.

Maybe Christmas provides what Fleet Street calls “a topical peg“--but the news that Tony Blair has turned Roman Catholic lacks any wow factor.
He’s been edging that way for years, sponsored by Cherie and a thousand confessions over the cornflakes.
Of course, on a personal level, it’s a big deal for him. Of course, at Vatican level, a starry new convert with a gift for front-page coverage is doubly blessed.
But otherwise this a slightly uncomfortable little tale. British politicians don’t really do religion in public. They’re afraid it may frighten the voters.
We mostly like to think we’re sort of Christians. Forty two million of us said that in the last census.
But as for moving bums off seats to some relevant pew, forget it. The latest figures--852,500 Anglicans turning out every Sunday, against 861,800 Roman Catholics--only shows what puny proportions true faith has assumed.
The Queen may be bringing blessings on YouTube this year, but only as some vague gesture of digital deification.
We even have to import a few Polish strikers to claim premiership status.
Why did Blair keep his conversion under wraps for so long, pray? Why on earth should he think we’d mind? The second party of poopers on that census count--one 9 million strong--filled in no religion at all, a positive vote for nothing in particular, which now seems to have elected Nick Clegg as honorary leader.
He can say that he doesn’t believe without a flicker of movement on the polls. No allegiance, no comeback, because our world is not the wider world we have to live in.
Out there, we are urged to discover, in detail, what every possible next president of the US says now as he or she clambers into a pulpit, how Hillary is a United Methodist who prays, how Barack does the United Church of Christ, how four Roman Catholics limp behind in the Democratic race.
Testifying to faith is like raising a fat campaign chest. You can’t be a contender without it.
Thus, Mike Huckabee, the sudden challenger from Hope, Arkansas, is a shooting star because he used to be a Southern Baptist minister with his very own pulpit.
“Faith doesn’t just influence me; it really defines me.“ Mitt Romney, by contrast, is a falling Republican star because the faith that defines him features the Angel Moroni helping Joseph Smith to write the Book of Mormon, which somehow strikes Americans as weirder than born-again this or creationist that.
He didn’t do invading Iraq as an act of faith with any great enthusiasm. He tried not to be preachy, y’know, just shruggy and aw-shucksish. “Prominent Catholics“ like Ann Widdecombe, hopping around this weekend over his alleged cowardice on abortion, make exactly the point we’d trek miles to avoid.
It’s good that Blair has completed his personal journey, then. And it’s good that he’s done it when he has no power left to wield.
Roman Catholic bloggers can enjoy the moment. The rest of us, don’t-knows and won’t-says in our benevolently bumbling way, have other things to enjoy.
Peter Preston
GUARDIAN.CO.UK